The artificial intelligence rotated three-dimensional images of Hindi armor onto the left side of the visor in obedience to Des Grieux's command. The schematic of a tank as flat as a floor tile lifted to display the balloon tires, four per axle, which supported its weight. In particularly marshy spots—and the rice paddies on both sides of the border area were muddy ponds for most of the year—the tires could be covered with one-piece tracks to lower the ground pressure still further.
The tank did not have a rotating turret. Its long, slim gun was mounted along the vehicle's centerline.The weapon used combustion-augmented plasma to drive armor-piercing shots at velocities of several thousand meters per second.
Comparable Han vehicles mounted lasers in small turrets. Neither technology was quite as effective as the powerguns of the Slammers—and Baffin's Legion; but they would serve lethally, even against armor as thick as that of Des Grieux's tank.
The AI began to display a Hindi armored personnel carrier, also running on large tires behind a thin shield of armor. Des Grieux switched his helmet to direct vision. The images continued to flicker unwatched on the left-hand screen below in the fighting compartment. Adrenaline from the bottle incident left the mercenary too restless to pretend interest in mere holograms.
There were hundreds of vehicles behind Des Grieux's tank. The convoy snaked down and across the valley floor for as far as he could see without increasing his visor's magnification. Most of the column was of Han manufacture: laser vehicles, troop transports, maintenance vans. Huge, articulated supply trucks with powerplants at both ends of the load; they'd be bitches to get up these ridges separating the fertile valleys.
Des Grieux didn't care about the logistics vehicles, whether indigenous or the Slammers' own. His business was with things that shot, things that fought. If he had a weapon, the form it took didn't matter.A tank like the one he commanded now was best; but if Des Grieux had been an infantryman with nothing but a semiautomatic powergun, he'd have faced a tank and not worried about the disparity in equipment. So long as he had a chance to fight . . . .
The convoy contained a Han mechanized brigade, the Black Banner Guards: the main indig striking force on the Western Wing. The tanks of Hammer's H Company were spread at intervals along the order of march to provide air and artillery defense.
Out of sight of the convoy, two companies of combat cars and another of infantry screened the force's front and flanks. Hammer's air-cushion vehicles were much more nimble on the boggy lowlands than the wheeled and track-laying equivalents with which the indigs made do.
No doubt the locals would rather have built their ownACVs,but the technology of miniaturized fusion powerplants was beyond the manufacturing capacity of any but the most sophisticated handful of human worlds. Without individual fusion bottles, air-cushion vehicles lacked the range and weight of weapons and armor necessary for frontline combat units.
So they hired specialists, the Han and Hindis both. If one side in a conflict mortgaged its future to hire off-planet talent, the other side either matched the ante—or forfeited that future.
The rice on the terraces had a bluish tinge that Des Grieux didn't remember having seen before, though he'd fought on half a dozen rice-growing worlds over the years . . . .
His eyes narrowed. An air-cushion jeep sped up the road from the back of the column. It passed trucks every time the graded surface widened and gunned directly up-slope at switchbacks to cut corners. Des Grieux thought he recognized the squat figure in the passenger seat.
He looked deliberately away.
Des Grieux's tank was nearing the last switchback before the crest. The vehicle ahead began to blat through open exhaust pipes again, though its engine note didn't change. Han trucks used hydraulic torque converters instead of geared transmissions, so their diesels always stayed within the powerband. Lousy troops, but good equipment . . . .
Des Grieux imagined the jeep passing his tank—spinning a little in the high-pressure air vented beneath the tank's skirts—sliding under the wheels of the Han truck and then, as Captain Broglie screamed,being reduced to a millimeter's thick streak as the tank overran the wreckage despite all Pesco did to avoid the obstacle.
Des Grieux caught himself. He was shaking. He didn't know what his face looked like, but he suddenly realized that the soldiers in the truck ahead had ducked for cover again.
The truck turned hard left and dropped down the other side of the ridge. Brakelights glowed. The disadvantage of a torque coverter was that it didn't permit compression braking . . . .
From the crest, Des Grieux could see three more ridgelines furrowing the horizon to the west. The last was in Hindi territory. Three centuries ago, this planet had been named Friendship and colonized by the Pan-Asian Cooperative Settlement Authority. The organizers' plans had worked out about as well as most notions that depended on the Brotherhood of Man.
More business for Hammer's Slammers. More chances for Slick Des Grieux to do what he did better than anybody else . . . .
Pesco pivoted the tank, changing its attitude to follow the road before sliding off the crest. As the huge vehicle paused, the jeep came up along the port side. Des Grieux expected the jeep to pass them. Instead, the passenger—Broglie, as Des Grieux had known from the first glimpse—gripped the mounting handholds welded to the tank's skirts and pulled himself aboard.
The jeep dropped back. For a moment, Des Grieux could see nothing of his new company commander except shoulders and the top of his head as Broglie found the steps behind their spring-loaded coverplates. If he slipped now—
Broglie lifted himself onto the tank's deck. Unless Pesco was using a panoramic display—which he shouldn't be,not when the road ahead was more than enough to occupy anybody driving a vehicle of the tank's bulk—he didn't know what was going on behind him. The driver would have kittens when he learned, since at least half the blame would land on him if something went wrong.
Des Grieux would have taken his share of the trouble willingly, just to see the red smear where that human being had been ground into the gravel.
Broglie braced one foot on a turret foothold and leaned toward the cupola. "Hello, Slick," he said. He shouted to be heard over the rush of air into the fan intakes."Since we're going to be working together again,I figured I'd come and chat with you. Without going through the commo net and whoever might be listening in."
Des Grieux looked at his new company commander. The skin of Broglie's face was red. Des Grieux remembered that the other man never seemed to tan, just weathered. He looked older, too; but Via, they all did.
"I didn't know you were going to be here when I took the transfer to Hotel," Des Grieux blurted.He hadn't planned to say that; hadn't planned to say anything, but the words came out when he looked into Broglie's eyes and remembered how much he hated the man.
"Figured that," said Broglie, nodding. He looked toward the horizon, then added,"You belong in tanks,Slick.They're the greatest force multiplier there is. A man who can use weapons like you ought to have the best weapons."